1. Technical Field
This disclosure relates to aggregating patient medical records, and in particular, to aggregating and organizing medical records in a manner that protects the identity of the patient.
2. Background
Patient medical records are increasingly becoming digitized and stored in computer databases. Data privacy and security issues are thus paramount, as well as compliance with applicable laws and regulations. For example, in the United States, the HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability And Accountability Act) requires that patient medical records be kept confidential, and not released to third parties without authorization. Yet, it is advantageous for different entities to have access certain medical records for purposes of research, clinical studies, and diagnosis. However, many regulations, including HIPAA, do not permit unrelated or independent entities to aggregate medical records as such aggregation could permit the entity to identify persons associated with the medical records, resulting in a privacy breach.
Further, even when medical records are properly obtained, such records may be incomplete, erroneous, and/or ambiguous. Thus, aggregating and associating medical records corresponding to a particular patient is difficult, irrespective of the privacy and compliance issues.
Accordingly, a need exists to allow analysis of patient medical records in a protected (i.e., anonymous) fashion by aggregating and identifying medical records as belonging to a common patient without revealing the identity of the patient. This is useful in research, clinical studies, or when identifying medical conditions, particularly when such patient medical records are obtained from unrelated databases or source systems.